Over the past decade, a growing number of urban school districts have responded to the presence of charter schools by providing some of their own schools the same flexibilities that charters enjoy. But few have gone as far as Indianapolis, where the district is now authorizing what it calls innovation network schools: districts schools that are run by outside contractors, with their own independent boards and full charter-style autonomy.

In this episode of the Ed Next podcast, Marty West talks with David Osborne about what is happening in Indianapolis and how it could be a potential model for the reform of large city school districts.

David Osborne is director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Reinventing America’s Schools Project and the author of a new article on the Ed Next website: “More Options in Indianapolis.”